There is a line in Ecclesiastes that has always stayed with me: “For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.” Weddings, too, seem to follow the seasons. Most couples prefer to marry when ceremonies can be held outdoors—when the weather is gentle, the breezes are warm, and flowers […]
Read More
Somewhere between the words we do and I love you lies the heart of every wedding vow. For millennia, couples have stood before their communities and spoken aloud the one thing language has always allowed them to affirm: a promise. In ancient India, partners circled a sacred fire seven times, pledging health, harmony, and companionship. […]
Read More
This reflection, adapted once again from Matthew Fox’s Daily Meditations, concludes my three-part series on vows. As an officiant, I continue to find Fox’s insights both ancient and strikingly relevant to the work of holding vows at the center of a wedding ceremony. In his Order of the Sacred Earth, Fox suggests that the vows […]
Read More
This reflection, adapted largely from Gianluigi Gugliermetto in Matthew Fox’s Daily Meditations, continues my three-part series on vows. As an officiant, I find his insights deeply relevant to the work of holding vows at the center of the wedding ceremony. In my earlier reflections, I called vows the heart and soul of a wedding ceremony. […]
Read More
Vows, Part I Inspired by Gianluigi Gugliermetto’s meditation in Matthew Fox’s Daily Meditations (9/24/25) Of all the moments in a wedding ceremony, when two people turn to each other and speak their vows, the air changes. Guests lean in. Even the restless children grow quiet. Why? Because vows are different from promises. As Gugliermetto reminds […]
Read More
We briefly met Wendell Berry in the late 1980s, shortly after we were married, at a poetry reading and book signing at Village Books, in Bellingham. After the event, we handed him the book and told him that we were relative newlyweds. He took the book, bent over, and on the inside cover gently penned […]
Read More
“What is an officiant?” For many couples, the officiant is another box to check on a wedding to-do list, right alongside the planner, photographer, florist, caterer, and DJ. Someone has to sign the license and say a few words to get you from “single” to “married.” But an officiant is more than that. Regardless of […]
Read More
“So, uh…do you believe in God?” I have the feeling that this question often belongs to a longer string of awkward queries, like: “Do you believe the earth is flat?” “Do you still believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny?” or “Do you think the world was created 5,000 years ago?” Unfortunately, institutionalized religion—despite […]
Read More
Have you ever been walking in the woods when someone spots a deer or a blue heron? In that moment, a kind of urgent hush comes over the group, for fear of disturbing the moment—or missing it entirely. In a wedding ceremony, that moment comes when the vows are spoken. The music has quieted by […]
Read More
“May you love in a time of fire, May you burn with love’s desire. May you love when the earth is shaking, May you hold fast though your heart is breaking. May these faces reflect your loving, And may your loving bless us all.” — Linda Allen, “Wedding Blessing” A Time of Cultural Upheaval I […]
Read More